Fox News is concerned about the moral and political implications of M&M's... again

A new M&M's ad campaign designed to support women has driven Tucker Carlson, Fox News, and other right-wing figures into a melt(in-your-mouth)down

By Reid McCarter  |  January 13, 2023 | 6:09pm
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Fox News is concerned about the moral and political implications of M&M's... again
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Early last year, Fox News host Tucker Carlson warned Americans of one of the greatest threats the nation had ever faced: “Woke M&M’s.” Driven into a no-doubt-completely-legitimate fury over a chocolate mascot redesign that saw the green M&M become less sexy, Carlson ranted that “M&M’s will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous—until the moment you wouldn’t want to have a drink with any one of them.”

We laughed at the time, not taking his warning that we would no longer want to bang sentient cocoa spheres seriously. And, left unchecked, the M&M’s advertising team pushed even further into realms of political and moral decay we could never have imagined.

M&M’s have now, god help us all, become even more woke.

The above clip, tweeted by @leash_kid_ earlier this week, sees Carlson take up the mantle of the battle-hardened freedom fighters of generations before him when faced with an all-women M&M’s package, furrow his brow in trademark puzzlement over the sugary complexities of this modern world of ours, and announce: “Woke M&Ms have returned.”

“The green M&M got her boots back, but apparently is now a lesbian maybe, and there’s also a plus-sized, obese purple M&M,” he states, before concluding, “So, we’re going to cover that. Of course. Because that’s what we do.”

Though brand posturing is inherently silly, opportunistic, and not worth serious response, Fox News has decided that the footwear, sexuality, and body weight of a trio of M&M’s mascots could be an opportunity for a culture war front somehow more boneheaded than whatever’s going on with the gas stove stuff lately.

And so, Fox News devoted a recent edition of Outnumbered—a show that advertises itself as “an ensemble of four female panelists and #OneLuckyGuy”—to the M&M’s situation. A clip tweeted by Nikki McCann Ramírez shows the panel discussing the bigger ramifications of the candy packaging—like how China is using all of this, especially through that nefarious TikTok, as an opportunity to gain further geopolitical influence.

At one point during this discussion, the One Lucky Guy tries out a sweaty gag about Starbucks’ Italian drink-size names in relation to the woke M&M’s, which lands with a complete thud, the other host’s puzzled silence breaking into forced laughter only after he explains his joke.

“Can we just have something nice for a change?” one of the hosts asks afterward. “Can we just enjoy M&M’s without having to be something bigger?”

“Yeah, we can,” another replies before another silent moment of unexamined contemplation follows.

Elsewhere, walking self-parodies Nick Adams and Ben Shapiro weighed in on this important issue as well, Adams proposing “all-male M&M’s” as a solution to this “legitimate crisis” and Shapiro using one of his staccato nerd monologues to make terrible jokes about not asking female M&M’s for directions and some bottom of the barrel transphobic material.

Given the long history of right-wing dorks getting into arguments with candy, we imagine it won’t be long before this whole thing is dealt with and we can all move on to more important topics, like, say, Reese’s Pieces’ position on climate change.

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